Teaching At The Academy of Applique
This is Barbara Burnham’s class with Barbara teaching. She does beautiful quilting work and has in her class displayed a quilt she has made and is teaching. This is museum quality work she has displayed. This is her first year with us and we are happy to have her. The students all give her rave reviews.
2016 Academy Under Way
The 2016 Academy of Applique is under way and going great. This is a photo of Quilting Hall of Fame inductee Mimi Dietrich providing instruction. She is the best representative of the kind of people involved in quilting. Everyone is having a great time the food is fabulous and I write this late Thursday night while we receive a lite dusting of snow.
If you didn’t make it to this years Academy of Applique you’re missing out on a great quilting experience. Phillis we miss you this year, and hope everything is ok your humor kept us smiling for a week last year.
Barbara has done a great job of organizing the event and has provided an incredible selection of teachers this year. Cori Blunt is new to us this year and creates stunning embellishment like nothing I have ever seen. From her students to teaching staff we are all just stunned at the quality of her projects.
More tomorrow…
Thanks To Colleen Hughes
I just wanted to thank you Colleen for the wonderful article you wrote in the Baltimore Applique Society. It was a very insightful description of the Academy, how much you and your sister enjoyed it, and some of the events that took place during the event. Everyone had a great time, but not everyone took the time to write such a great article. Barbara was teary eyed as she read your email and article copy.
It is always nice to know when you do something right, and my sweetheart works very hard to create a academy that she would like to attend. She spent many years attending previously and took those experiences as a student and put together what she thought would make it that much better. To her credit I think she did a great job, but obviously as her husband I am bias. Your article was a beautiful way to tell us how much you enjoyed it as well.
I hope you will join us one night for a taste of Williamsburg, I told Barbara I was buying you and Charlotte dinner for your efforts.
Thanks,
Rick Blanton
Quilters Perfect Man
I found this on one of my pinterest boards and thought I would post it. This has to be the quilters perfect man. I know it would have to be the boss ladies. Just kidding honey.
Incredible Stitchery From Karlee Porter
Someone posted this image on my Facebook page and I thought it was so nice I had to find the persons website that created it. Her name Karlee Porter, and as everyone knows I don’t know from straight up about quilting whether it’s applique or not, I just know what makes me look for a long time at some serious artwork. I think this is it.
I talked to Barbara about our goal of always trying to find ways to bring the youth into Applique quilting to keep this art alive. My thinking was Karlee Porter is very young but very talented and might prove to be the ticket to stir interest in America’s youth into applique and quilting.
The Back End Work
Ok so we have been working at completing the back end work to complete the sign up process for the Academy. The size of the site is growing daily and will be moved to a faster server on the East Coast for speed and convenience by the end of the year. Hopefully I have the system working flawlessly to produce the final invoicing and confirmation information for attendees. If not the Boss Lady has informed me it will be big time trouble.
You should receive an email with a special link to finish everything required for final billing and with a list of classes and events you signed up for.
To prove how serious she is, the Boss Lady emailed me this photo.
Ok So I am Flattered
I often say to Barbara don’t worry were are doing things no one has done before. It’s a little easier because we have a fresh set of eyes. There have been many things from the look and feel of our site to word getting back about others now going to do some of the same ideas.
I also tell her not to worry when we are copied that it really is the sincerest form of flattery. Which is why I wrote this particular post in my corner. As many of you have commented in emails, both to me and Barbara the 5 question idea was great and they wait for the next one to come out and learn about the teachers. Even the teachers have responded well and enjoyed the idea.
So today I an flattered that the Oregon Pilomath Express has done 5 questions with a quilter in their paper. OK so i am flattered.
Thanks…
Rick
Crash & Burn But Great
So for me it’s 2:30am in the morning and what a day to say the least. It is amazing the quality of people that come to the Academy really and truly are. Through the difficulties of crashing the server in a matter of minutes everyone was pleasant and emailed or called to fix things, register classes and make sure things turned out ok. Not a single person was even slightly grumpy, and believe me when I say I had enough for all of us.
The boss lady only knows part of the technical changes made behind the scenes that were done to make this a smooth operation. We upgraded the server and called ahead of time to make sure the typical internet speed throttle wasn’t applied for today. Seriously I never thought for a second the the Academy appliquers could crash the server in two minutes. Literally in two minutes.
I called the tech folks that house the server where the site resides and just so everyone knows it is located in the midwest to make access the same for both coast. So they move me up the chain because I am not the regular customer, when their tech guy says, “let me look“. He says to me, no kidding “I am not having any problem”.
This is the point where you wish for internet gods to let you reach through the phone to strangle the hell out of someone. Calmly with my tongue bleeding I say “well of course you don’t your sitting in the next room from the server.” Pause… “Oh yeah let me reroute through a proxy server through Canada.” So I hear a few excuses optimisation, throttling, server load, yada yada.
At which point I made the executive decision we were going to go from dead stop to slow, and by the end of the year they will be gone and if I have to we will collocate or dedicate a server all of our own and not shared with anyone, and basically under our control. It’s just very pricey to do it this way but I feel to make this a better experience for the best people it has to be done.
I personally can’t thank you enough for the calm pleasant calls, and emails to fix things, you all were just incredible. You will be treated with chocolate, love, and the best applique experience we can create in Williamsburg next year.
Despite crash & burn everything turned out great.
No kidding you absolutely rock…
Rick Blanton
Material Inventory
I think the Boss Lady invented this phrase. It sounds like CFO speak to me. It’s what you get when you cross a life long appliquer and a CFO. “Material Inventory”
Printing the PDF File
Here is a 50 page PDF file I uploaded for the trouble makers. 😉
http://www.academyofapplique.com/pdffiles/onlinemagazine.pdf
I have to tell you though it is almost 35mb. If you have a fast connection no worries.
Also know that if you can manage the catalog on line, at full screen the top of the page has a download icon and it can be done that way as well.
If this file is to big I would be more than happy to break it up and send you any pages you would like. Just let me know and thanks.
Rick
you could teach me Applique. I have no patience.
Quilting Cartoons
